We’ve been settling into our new home and I’m loving living right on the water. The sky here in the Netherlands is often moody and busy with beautiful shapes and colours, and I love the way that the water reflects and repeats all the sky beauty down at ground level.

My fun day of outdoor creative “play” culminated in an artwork that I love in many ways. And now I’m at that point where I wonder how I’ll know when it’s finished. Here are two methods I use for assessing when my art is where I want it to be, and therefore “finished.”

My next commission is an abstract in blues, but Yellow insisted on playing too. She said she’d promise to be shy and stay in the background if I let her go first.

I painted outside again the other day. At first I was a bit annoyed that the trees were casting shadows on my artwork, which changed the colours and the dark/ light values, making it difficult for me to assess how the work was developing.

Your art doesn’t need to match your decor. Of course, it can if you’d like that…

This morning I traveled by train to Almere, to take my artwork to a fine art scanner so it can be digitized for printing. It’s my first solo train ride, so I was a little nervous about finding the right train and being on time for my appointment.

There have been so many new beginnings over the past month. My art-making and life feel full of new possibilities. There’s also so much I treasure from previous chapters and want to make sure to bring with me into this next chapter of my art (and life.)

Those of you who’ve come along with me for several years now will remember that I co-founded The Creative Grief Studio with Kara Jones back in 2011. It’s been a few years now since I left CGS at the end of 2019, so it was such fun to be invited back to share with all of the CGS alumni about my Untangle Your Grief book.

Something surprising and hilarious happened in my studio and I have to tell you all about it because it delivered me a perfectly-timed and much-needed truth-bomb, and it’s all still giving me the giggles…

Both my art-making and life-making these days are asking me to stop over-functioning and let go of my training into the idea that understanding and being understood are required in order to enjoy art (and life).

If you’ve spent any time around here, you’ll have noticed that I really LOVE South African flora, especially Proteas. I was reflecting the other day on how many many different versions of Proteas I’ve created, and how exploring their quirky shapes, colours, and textures never gets old.

I spent the morning playing with different media and versions of a beach landscape, exploring different media, line, light, color, space, texture, edges, and shape.

I was struggling to start making art on a large canvas today so I tried a trick that’s worked before… instead of trying to make art on the prepared canvases, I got out some Gesso and prepared some more large canvases.

I’ve been learning so much about abstract art lately, and doing a lot of noticing what I like, when I feel a piece works, and trying to figure out what it is that’s making it feel like it works.

This week, after getting in touch with some big grief I’ve been feeling, I sat and created some “Happy-mess” ink sketches of one of the things I appreciate now more than ever. We still share lots of cuddles and physical affection between the 3 of us in our household, but I grieve deeply for all of the other physical touch, closeness, and affection that Covid has stolen from me.

Almost every weekend, and often on both weekend days these days, we visit our favourite beach. It’s become something of a ritual with all the same elements that the four of us love, and so we repeat it all every time …